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“I don’t care if Harristan falls to the rebels or to the consuls,” Allisander says. “Either way, your brother will not be in power for long.”
I slam my hand against the bars and the clang echoes throughout the prison. “Are you not hearing me?” I say. “Are you not listening? They will kill the other consuls. They have set the palace on fire. If we cannot find a way to undo this mess that you had a hand in creating, then there will be no Royal Sector to spend silver on your precious shipments.”
He blanches at that.
“I will not bargain with smugglers,” he says.
“You already have. And I don’t want a bargain. I want medicine, and plenty of it. Harristan needs to be able to buy time.”
“Absolutely not. You will not have one single petal—”
“Shut up.” I look at Rocco. “Bring him.”
Rocco drags Allisander out of the cell. He screams and thrashes the whole way, but the guard is impassive and unaffected, even when we move to climb the stairs.
I think of Tessa and Harristan facing down the rebels. I think of Arella Cherry begging for leniency, even though it pitted her against the other consuls, every single time. I think of Jonas Beeching pleading for more silver, and how Allisander accused him of cheating the system to buy more medicine.
And all the while, Allisander was trying to inflate his own prices.
I should tell Rocco to knock him down the stairs.
When we get out of the prison and onto the streets, Allisander shuts up. I don’t know if it’s the smoke in the air or the fact that we can see that fires still burn in the east wing of the palace, but I’m glad something made him stop.
“They did this?” he says, and his tone is strangled.
“You gave them the means,” I snap.
Rocco binds his hands while I climb onto my horse, and then I take the rope and give it a jerk, nearly knocking Allisander off his feet. “Walk,” I say to him.
“I absolutely will not—”
“Suit yourself.” I loop the rope through the pommel of my saddle and cluck to the horse. The rope jerks tight.
Allisander swears and stumbles and almost falls, but he must decide walking is better than being dragged. “This is extortion,” he snaps at me.
“Medicine,” I snap back. “How much can you provide?”
“None.”
I look at Rocco. “Fancy a gallop?” I draw up my reins. The horse begins to prance, eager.
“Fine,” Allisander grits out. “A week of medicine.”
“Eight weeks.”
“I cannot provide medicine to all of Kandala for eight weeks—” But he breaks off as we sidestep a pair of bodies in the street. Two members of the night patrol. One took an arrow through the chest, though the other looks like he took an ax to the head. Tissue and bone glisten in the moonlight. Allisander realizes he’s walking through blood and probably other things and sidesteps quickly.
His breathing has gone shallow and ragged. He probably wants his precious handkerchief.
“There are more,” I say. A dozen yards ahead, we stumble upon three more. One woman, two men. A wide swath of blood streaks across a wall, black in the shadowed street.
“Two weeks,” Allisander says, and it sounds like the words have been forced out of his mouth.
“Six,” I say.
“Four.”
“Six.”
“Four, Corrick! I can’t do more than that, and you know it.”
I look down at him. “Yes. You can.”
“I will agree to six if Consul Marpetta will agree to the same.”
“She usually follows your—” I break off. What did Lochlan and Karri say in the hut when Tessa was stitching me up? There’s a man and a woman. We call them the Benefactors. I thought it was Arella and Roydan. And Lissa was one of the few consuls who left the palace before any of this happened. “Allisander,” I demand. “Is Lissa doing this with you?”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
“Six weeks,” I say to him. “And you’ll be lucky if Harristan lets you keep your head at the end of it.” I give the rope a sharp tug. “Hurry up. We need to stop a war.”
